Kaiser Health News reports there's wide variety in ACOs' performance in five categories related to diabetes and heart disease, the conditions covered in the first public numbers released by Medicare that reflect how patient care is being affected by specific networks.

The figures, released Friday, cover five of the 33 quality measures Medicare is tracking for 141 of the 250 ACOs currently in existence. Four of the measures evaluate how well ACOs helped patients with diabetes, and the fifth examined how many patients with arteries packed with plaque received appropriate medicines, according to Kaiser's report.

In general, according to Kaiser, most ACOs reached between 65 percent to 75 percent of their patients on most of the categories. MissionPoint was a few percentage points above or below the national average for three of the five measures (blood pressure control, tobacco nonuse and ACE inhibitor or ARB therapy for patients with coronary artery disease and/or left ventricular systolic dysfunction) but fell more significantly below it in hemoglobin control and aspirin use.

Industries:

Comments

If you are commenting using a Facebook account, your profile information may be displayed with your comment depending on your privacy settings. By leaving the 'Post to Facebook' box selected, your comment will be published to your Facebook profile in addition to the space below.